Thinking About Advent, Justice, and the Cross

 

Photo by Samuel McGarrigle on Unsplash

 

“'Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,'” says the LORD; I will place him in the safety for which he longs." - Psalm 12:5

 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, the stealth, the lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers, The mountains and the endless plain — All, all the stretch of these great green states — And make America again. " - Langston Hughes

 

"One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple / By the relief office I saw my people / As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if / This land was made for you and me." - Woodie Guthrie

 

"Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off." - Fannie Lou Hamer

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. "

-- From  Frederick Douglass´ speech in 1886 on the 24th anniversary of Emancipation, Washington, D.C.

 

In the Psalmist's day, the poor were plundered. It was true in Jesus' Day. It has been true through our great American experiment and it is true today. Part of what Advent means to us is that a new order has been announced and  the world is suddenly looking for loopholes in Jesus' message.

 

I love the way Jesus sees through my duplicity. I love it; I hate it; it makes me squirm; then I embrace it and love it and he says to me .....

Whatever He will say!!!

"He saw through their duplicity and said to them ..." - Luke 20:23

As he proclaimed a kingdom of love, grace, truth, and justice, those who were invested in power and privilege looked for ways to wiggle out of their responsibility and exclude themselves from criticism.

 

On of our common tricks is to make everything about a mysterious afterlife, which is very real, but is not all that Jesus addresses. God is present among us, the living, calling us to be present ourselves.

 

Throw all the trick questions at Jesus you like. Question him about dead issues, irrelevant issues, side issues, peripheral issues, issues and more issues ... but he keeps going to the heart of the matter about God. God is about living! And he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

It is rather simple in all its complexity.

"He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”" - Luke 20:38

He calls upon us to live both a crucified and a resurrected life in this world where we are salt and light and make a difference.

What is all this cross talk at Advent and Christmas? it doesn't sound too gentle, warm, and cozy? What do you think he came for?

That little vulnerable baby calls you to a life of vulnerability, self-denial, and radical discipleship.

That's Advent! That's Christmas.

I write this hearing Bing Crosby in the background singing "White Christmas" and wishing me days that are merry and bright.

May you have some of those indeed. God grant it. But don't build your life around them at the cost of taking up your cross daily and following Jesus as a radical disciple.

"Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." - Luke 9:23-26 NIV